Method and apparatus of providing emergency communication services

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is an electrical device and method of automatically searching for and connecting to known or unknown available public communication infrastructure and/or devices in the vicinity using a multi-layer communication model. Each layer may include binding information for local available communication methods and shareable hardware devices, a routing table, and, if applicable, one or more logon profiles for service providers. Communication layers may be built by searching for available public communication infrastructure and/or devices in the vicinity by actively sending out connection requests to all addressable destinations along the available transport medium. Each node is able to access and use the communication infrastructure of each other node. Switching between layers as they become inoperable and/or become available without any user interaction required is also possible.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 14/941,632,entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS OF PROVIDING EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONSERVICES”, filed on Nov. 15, 2015, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,386,620 onJul. 5, 2016, which is a continuation of application Ser. No.14/450,667, entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS OF PROVIDING EMERGENCYCOMMUNICATION SERVICES”, filed on Aug. 4, 2014, issued as U.S. Pat. No.9,191,981 on Nov. 17, 2015, which is a continuation of application Ser.No. 12/850,001, entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS OF PROVIDING EMERGENCYCOMMUNICATION SERVICES”, filed on Aug. 4, 2010, issued as U.S. Pat. No.8,797,855 on Aug. 5, 2014, the entire contents of are herebyincorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to communication networks, and more particularlyto providing emergency communication services for communicationsnetworks.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

During emergencies it is necessary that family and friends stayconnected when certain communication methods are either broken or notparticularly efficient. This requires that communication in be asflexible and reliable as possible to keep people connected.

Accessibility to such communication mediums is generally granted viavarious methods including a desktop software client application, textmessaging, email and even voice transmission. Such communications shouldalso be able to gather local news from local and national news sources,and public safety announcements from natural disaster predictionsources, such as, the National Oceanic group and the AtmosphericAdministration group.

The user should be able to post status updates to social networks forclose friends and family. Reception of such status updates and socialnetwork news feeds should be available to let the user see what peopleare doing, as well as their location on a map if such an application isbeing shared.

Times of crisis usually involve a breakdown in mobile phonecommunications and other key communication infrastructures. Failure ofelectricity and limited accessibility of a person to communicate mayalso be caused by environmental conditions or personal injuries. Suchscenarios usually require at least a working mobile phone or other keycommunication infrastructure for the user to access in the case of anemergency.

Obviously, a partial lack of access to a key communicationinfrastructure can be solved by building up a small local area AD-Hocnetwork where similar network clients may connect to each other asneeded, either by cable or via a wireless communication medium.

The military commonly sets up such infrastructures as most of theinterest in Ad-Hoc networking has been from the military. Battlefieldapplications already exist where troops and vehicles are equipped withAd-Hoc radios. These troops then form a communication network in theever-changing battlefield environment that is independent from publicavailable communication infrastructure.

Another group of Ad-Hoc networks that is well known from crisissituations has been citizen band radios, which provide efficient simplegroup voice communication in radio coverage area.

Speech communication in an Ad-Hoc manner for very short connections maybe provided by cordless telephones. There are several standards incordless telephony, both analog and digital. Infrared (IR) connectionsare widely used in remote controllers, and in peer-to-peer connectionsbetween mobile phones, PDA's and laptops. IR provides a simple and easyway to communicate between compatible nodes in very short connections.

For data transmission, remote controls can also utilize a radioconnection for example a radio “key” that can be used for a car or adoor. Computer keyboards and mice also can be connected via, typicallyproprietary radios for each application. For speech and datatransmission, a Bluetooth radio connection has been developed especiallyfor mobile devices to connect to their short-range environment.Bluetooth is used mainly for single hop connections where devicesautomatically form a master-slave point to point network. Such networkscan be multi-layered so that a slave may operate as a master for otherslaves. Communication happens mainly between master and slave.Communication between two slaves happens via common master.

Wireless local area networks also are capable of operating in an Ad-Hocmanner basically with single-hop connections between similar nodes. Atypical construction of such a network includes access points that areconnected to a network and wireless network interface cards in nodes.This technology supports also peer-to-peer communication mainly for datatransfer directly between nodes.

The application market includes such tools as Yahoo's Fire Eagle®service, which, for example, discloses and covers a method to brokerlocation information. It includes functions to share information about adevice location with sites, services and other network clients. Themethod allows transmission and reception of information about a deviceslocation to and from a central platform. Data exchange may be done byvarious types of devices and operating systems, such as, computers,mobile phones and GPS devices. However, this method presupposes aworking accessible connection to a communication infrastructure from theparticipating device. Initial build up of such a connection based onlocal available access points or usage of communication methods otherthan packet oriented network protocols is not provided by such acommunication method.

Microsoft's “Vine”® communication platform provides a similar set offunctionalities including methods to send alerts and receive reportsfrom a defined group of devices. Communication may include reception ofregion specific messages and public safety announcements from governmentofficials and transmission of alerts to such authorities. The solutionallows the setup of a defined group of devices built from availableprofiles. To the user, such a group appears as a virtual local areanetwork. Although the application conveys the impression that itprovides a safety network in the case of crisis situations, it requiresan accessible broadband Internet connection, valid logon information forsuch a connection, and a personal computer with a manufacturer specificsetup. In a real crisis situation, it is unlikely that all suchrequirements will be satisfied.

The open source messaging client “Lampiro”® effectively creates a“morph” procedure that “morphs” mobile devices into terminals thatprovide a functionality similar to “thin” clients. The applicationallows the control of remote peripherals, and through menus and wizards,interaction with applications and services running on a remote server.The application utilizes a manufacturer specific communication protocolthat is located on top of the primary communication layer of the device.The application acts as a universal client, which interacts with aremote server. Although the application introduces an additionalcommunication layer that adds extended functionality to the device, anoperational access to public communication infrastructure is requiredwhich allows usage of the layers functionality.

A method for bridging multiple network segments and exposing themultiple network segments as a single network to higher-level networkingsoftware on a bridging computing device, is described in U.S. Pat. No.7,089,335. Although this method discloses a technique that can be usedto guarantee a functioning access to public communication infrastructureeven if one of multiple network connections fails, it also requires atleast one working connection between the involved communication devices.

U.S. published patent application No. 2003/0202494 discloses a method, asystem or an apparatus that allows establishment of an Ad-Hoc networkutilizing a node and a plurality of nodelets. The application describesa technique to build-up a virtual connection from a first device to asecond device, however, due to different communication standards of bothdevices, direct communication between the devices is not possible. Inoperation, devices in the vicinity of the first device that comply withthe communication standards of the first device may receive and forwarddata to other nodelets. Although this disclosure discusses building aconnection between incompatible devices, at least one accessible deviceis still needed to initiate the process for building up the connectionto the second device.

Both, U.S. published patent application No. 2005/0153725 and U.S. Pat.No. 6,879,574 disclose a method that includes a node that acts as agateway between a backbone access network (e.g. WLAN, cellular, mesh,etc.) and “child” terminals of a corresponding Ad-Hoc cell or subnet.One node acts as a gateway between the nodes within the Ad-Hoc domainand the backbone access network. The node may be elected to be thegateway by the trunk node itself or by a resource management entity.These references provide selecting from available communication layersand switching the active communication layer based on various criteriaand rule sets. Although these references already discloses a multi-layerarchitecture, an initially accessible connection between the devicesthat form a communication layer is still required.

Patent application publication No. 2007/0230421 discloses a method ofoperating an Ad-Hoc network that contains a plurality of devices each ofwhich stores information which specifies rules for determining how adevice should behave in response to various prevailing circumstances.Instead of building a separate communication layer for each device thismethod builds-up and maintains a database that contains informationabout connected devices, their capabilities, settings and performance.Although the ability to remember and exchange logon and routinginformation between devices makes it possible to share logon profilesthat allow access to a public communication infrastructure, thereference does not disclose how this information should be gathered ifneither the configuration nor the communication abilities of the targetdevice are known.

A software architecture that provides Ad-Hoc wireless networkingcapabilities, user and kernel mode modules, and a multiplexing driverframework that enables connection to multiple Ad-Hoc networks isdisclosed in patent application publication No. US 2009/0109995. Thedisclosure describes methods to discover wireless networks and alreadycontains a multi-layer communication architecture which allowssimultaneous connections over a single physical adapter and bridging ofsuch connections. The method provides a way to connect a single physicalexistent network adapter with multiple virtual adapters via amultiplexing driver. Although this method permits bridging multipleconcurrently active virtual network adapters using one physical adapter,the newly created low level multiplexing driver requires additionalframe headers to function properly.

Another method for performing in an Ad-Hoc network configuration isdisclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,443,833. In this reference, prior toestablishing a connection to a node a condition is defined to beassociated with such nodes. In case the specified condition occurs, themethod utilizes a dedicated, contention free, discovery-communicationtime period during which each node broadcasts, for reception by allother nodes, its attributes, including its identity, its operatingcharacteristics, its capabilities, and its associated link qualities inrelation to the other nodes. The reference utilizes the results of theexchange process to create and make available to all nodes, an overallnetwork topology map associated with the nodes. Although this disclosureshows a way to create a network topology with initially unknown nodes,the method is based on a predefined set of rules that has to be knownand obeyed by all potential nodes prior to establishing a connection. Inaddition, the defined condition limits the result of the discoveryprocess to nodes that meet the condition.

All of the above-noted references disclose networking configurationsthat provide limited accessibility and/or stringent conditions imposedon the various communication devices operated by the end users. Deviceconnections need to be seamlessly combined with past, current andpossible future network infrastructures in order to guarantee serviceprovisioning for end users and to maintain communication in the event ofa crisis.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Example embodiments of the present invention may include a method oftransmission of data packets from or to an electrical device accordingto a packet data service in a wired or radio network which is providedfor data transmission and in which at least one primary communicationchannel for transmission of at least one data packet from or to theelectrical device is set up in a transmission system of the network, viaat least one additional communication channel, and the additionalcommunication channel is established by the electrical device. Themethod may include searching for at least one of an available publiccommunication infrastructure and devices in a corresponding vicinity byactively sending out connection request packets to all addressabledestinations via an accessible transport medium. The method may alsoinclude connecting to responding destinations by exchanging a set ofpredefined logon information.

Example embodiments of the present invention may include an apparatusdevice configured to transmit data packets from or to an electricaldevice according to a packet data service in a wired or radio networkwhich is provided for data transmission and in which at least oneprimary communication channel for transmission of at least one datapacket from or to the electrical device is set up in a transmissionsystem of the network. The electrical device may include at least oneprocessor that, when loaded with computer-readable instructions,executes the instructions to build up an additional communicationchannel at the electrical device. The electrical device may also beconfigured to search for at least one of available public communicationinfrastructure and devices in a corresponding vicinity by activelysending out connection request packets to all addressable destinationsvia an accessible transport medium, and connect to respondingdestinations by exchanging a set of predefined logon information.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary operating environment,according to example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a method of creating a communicationlayer in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram generally illustrating a device that has asingle communication interface, according to example embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a method of switching betweencommunication layers as they become inoperable or become available,according to example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary illustration generally representing locations forplacement of an auxiliary peripheral device that provides additionalcommunication layers for a mobile device such as a cell phone or amobile PC.

FIG. 6 is an exemplary illustration generally representing a locationfor placement of an auxiliary peripheral device that provides additionalcommunication layers for an electrical device such as an analogtelephone.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed at addressing the mentionedshortcomings, disadvantages and problems, and will be understood byreading and studying the following specification. The invention may bemore vividly described with reference to FIGS. 1-6.

Access to the various communication networks already in place is anongoing struggle for the communication devices available today. Otherconcerns for maintaining communication may include how to deal with thefailure of electrical power sources. In addition, it is likely that thespecific service provider of a mobile phone may not be accessible due tooverloading of the communication lines. Another ongoing dilemma is howdevices that work on different communication standards (i.e.,technology, frequency, network protocol, etc.) can communicate togetherto form a network, either Ad-Hoc or other type of communication scheme.

Ideally, a mobile station would be configured to have a technique thatmay be used to explore devices in a given vicinity, identify thecommunication technologies being employed by the mobile stations of thatgiven vicinity, and morph the configuration of the mobile station to fitinto the profile accessible to the nearest network. Such a configurationprocess may include the setup of a independent communication layer,which may be based on the gathered information from the identificationprocedure.

The process of actively identifying a network configuration protocol andrelated communication standards and creating that particularcommunication layer based on the identified standards has not beenestablished by any vendor. Example embodiments of the present inventiondisclose a method to create and switch between communication layerswhich are bound to different physical network adapters.

In operation, an electrical device, such as, a mobile stationautomatically searches for and connects to known or unknown availablepublic communication infrastructure and/or devices in the nearbyvicinity using a multi-layer communication model. Each communicationlayer may include binding information for local available communicationmethods and shareable hardware devices, a routing table and, ifapplicable, one or more logon profiles for service providers.

As a device (i.e., mobile station) builds communication layers, itsearches for available public communication infrastructure and/ordevices in the vicinity by actively sending out connection requests toall addressable destinations reachable via the present transport medium(i.e., wireless networking). The device may connect to respondingdestinations and spontaneously builds a local area network (LAN) for thelayer with devices found in the vicinity. The nodes of the LANdynamically exchange layer specific information and share theirresources with other nodes. Each node is able to access and use thecommunication infrastructure of each other node. In addition, thecommunication layers may be switched between to allow the device toswitch between the layers as they become inoperable and/or availablewithout any user interaction required.

One example method of the present invention allows an electrical device,such as an analog telephone, an ISDN telephone, a radio device, a cellphone or a personal computer, to automatically search for and connect toavailable public communication infrastructure and/or devices in thenearby vicinity by using a multi-layer communication model. Themulti-layer communication model operates in wired and wirelessenvironments and supports connections to known and unknown serviceproviders as well as interconnections between devices that ordinarilyare incompatible with each other due to different communicationprotocols, frequencies or even transport media.

Each communication layer includes binding information for localavailable communication methods. The communication layers may alsoinclude shareable hardware devices, a routing table and, if applicable,one or more logon profiles for service providers. In operation, avisiting device would build communication layers by searching foravailable public communication infrastructure and/or devices in thenearby vicinity by actively sending out connection requests to alladdressable destinations of the transport medium. The device would thenconnect to responding destinations and spontaneously build a local areanetwork for the communication layer with devices found in the vicinity.

The nodes within the local area network dynamically exchange layerspecific information and share their resources with other nodes. Eachnode is able to access and use the communication infrastructure of eachother node. The device would be capable of switching between layers asthe layers are inoperable and/or become available without any userinteraction required.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an electronic device 100 which isalready equipped with multiple communication layers. The diagram showsthe implementation of various aspects of the invention. The electronicdevice is connected to a point-to-point network 104 via its primarycommunication layer 101. The “communication layer” is used forsimplification and represents a unit including information for localavailable communication methods such as network adapter, network client,network service, network transport and, if applicable, shareablehardware devices, a routing table, and one or more logon profiles forservice providers.

The electronic device 100 can access public communication infrastructureor other networks by connecting to the node 105 of the point-to-pointnetwork. This node usually processes authentication, identification,localization, encryption or data service information, and, aftersuccessful authentication of the electronic device acts as a router.This configuration can be found in most common electronic devices thatare used for communication purposes. In case of an analog telephone theprimary communication layer does not send or receive authenticationinformation. It simply identifies its network by a cable. This cableleads to a regional switching unit that performs the requested routingtasks.

In case of an ISDN telephone the electronic device is equipped with anadditional piece of hardware that is supplied by the service providerand which performs authentication and identification. If the device is acell phone, after powering on the device, the primary communicationlayer searches for available nodes in the vicinity, presents them to theuser, and, after selection of one node, exchanges authenticationinformation with this node, and, if successful, allows routing to otherdevices. Personal computers are usually connected to a cable which mayalready be part of a network.

Access to public communication infrastructure or other network nodesfrom the personal computer requires successful authentication with aspecial node defined by the service provider. In operation, a devicefirst connects to one node in the form of a point-to-pointcommunication. The node then provides routing capabilities for thedevice. If this initial connection cannot be established, access topublic communication infrastructure or other network nodes isimpossible. The usage of additional communication layers overcomes thislimitation. A secondary communication layer 102 connects to a device 107in the vicinity. The connection 106 can either be made by wire orwirelessly.

The device 107 already has an established connection 108 to a node 109that allows routing to public communication infrastructure. As thedevice 107 is already setup to allow routing between it's communicationlayers, the device 100 is able to access public communicationinfrastructure via the node 109 that is used by the device 107 to accesspublic communication infrastructure.

Routing between communication layers also allows access of the publiccommunication infrastructure by usage of more than one hop.Communication layer 103 may have a connection 110 to device 111.Unfortunately, this device does not have access to a router 115, butallows local routing between it's own communication layers. As device111 already has an established connection 112 to device 113, and device113 also allows local routing, all three devices are able to access thepublic communication infrastructure made available by the node 115.

As the communication capabilities and settings of a device in thevicinity, most likely, are unknown by the device that attempts tocommunicate, a suitable communication layer has to be established by theprimary device.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a method of creating such acommunication layer, according to example embodiments of the presentinvention. Initially, the device increments a number 200. The expression“number” means incremental value and depends on the available transportmedium at the device. In case of a packet-oriented wired network, thenumber represents the value of an IP address or a subnet mask. In caseof a telephone line, the number represents an information sequence thatmay either be built in analog or digital form. If the availabletransport medium is a radio device, the number means frequency.

To establish a suitable communication layer, the device creates a packet201 and/or sequence, a connection request from the incremented number,and sends 202 it along via the available transport medium. As thisprocess is not performed on the primary communication layer, it does notblock or limit the communication capabilities of the device. No response203 to a connection request leads to creation of a new incrementednumber followed by creation and sending out of a connection request. Asuccessful response initiates transmission of a predefined logon 204,and authentication information is sent to the responding destination.

As connection attempts to the whole available address range of thetransport medium most likely leads to multiple incompatible and/orunwanted responses, the exchange of logon information may be required.The logon information may be fairly simple and comparable to dialing a9-1-1 call. Failed exchange of logon information would again lead tocreation of a new incremented number followed by creating and sendingout a connection request. In the case of success, the device creates theadditional communication layer 206 which now can be used by the deviceto communicate.

As the majority of available devices throughout the world are equippedwith only one communication interface, which is further limited tocommunicate with a public communication infrastructure via one gatewayat a time, further steps may be necessary to allow the usage of theabove-described method with such devices.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary implementation of a communication methodwhen used with a common communication device, according to exampleembodiments of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 3, the device300 has a communication interface 301 that, in normal operation,connects via a node 302 which acts as a gateway to a publiccommunication infrastructure. Due to the fact that these conventionaldevices have a peripheral interface 303 which allows it to be pluggedinto a peripheral device, it's possible to build a requiredcommunication layer 305 on such a device.

Different peripheral devices with different communication interfaces canbe used to establish a required communication layer. For example, aprimary device with a communication interface that permits communicationin a narrow frequency band can be equipped with a peripheral interfacethat supports access to a packet-oriented wired network and/or an ISDNtelephone can be equipped with a peripheral interface that allows accessto a mobile radio network. For both examples, the added peripheraldevice would search for a device 306 in the vicinity that has aconnection 307 to a public communication infrastructure via a gateway308 and add an additional communication layer that allows access to apublic communication infrastructure from the primary device via thelayer 305.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a method of switching betweencommunication layers as they become inoperable and/or become available,according to example embodiments of the present invention. In general,communication layers behave similar to multiple network interfaces withpossibly different network transports. As common devices connect tonodes that reside outside of a local area network via one definedgateway, any additional communication layer may be subsequently added toa list of available communication interfaces such that the rank of eachlayer inside the list defines its corresponding gateway metric.

The communication layer creation process creates additionalcommunication layers according to the characteristics of devices foundin the vicinity. Communication layers may become inoperable and/orbecome available, also maintenance of the communication layers may berequired. In case the primary communication layer is working foradditional layers this task can be seamlessly performed in backgroundwithout interruption to the user's service. Even if the primarycommunication layer is in use and becomes inoperative, this task can beperformed with minor disturbances.

To define the metric of the layer, the device selects the layer 400 andsends data 401 to the node that was taken as the basis for creation ofthe communication layer (see procedure according to FIG. 2). If the nodeis accessible 402, the device transmits data 403, and, if applicable,performs this task on additional layers. If the node is not accessible,the device buffers 404 potentially existent payload data, updates thelist of available communication layers, selects the communication layerfrom the modified list and repeats the process.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary illustration representing locations forplacement of one or more auxiliary peripheral devices, according toexample embodiments of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 5, theauxiliary peripheral devices provide additional communication layers fora mobile device 500 such as a cell phone or a mobile PC. There are manyvarieties of devices that can serve as an auxiliary peripheral devicefor a primary electronic device. For example, some devices can connectto the electronic device via a hardwired connection 502 such as a USBconnection. The wireless device 508 connects to devices in the nearbyvicinity (ad-hoc, piconet, LAN, etc.) as well as to public availablecommunication infrastructures via wireless protocols.

FIG. 5 illustrates a device 508 that is equipped with an antenna 510 tocommunicate with a local area network as well as with an antenna 509 foraccess to wide area networks. As shown in FIG. 5 “smart” mobile phonesand pocket-sized computing devices provide reasonably good peripheralinterfaces and may be already configured to connect to and utilizeadditional peripheral devices. FIG. 5 illustrates multiple auxiliaryperipheral auxiliary devices that are connected to a primary electronicdevice. Such devices may come in form of an “emergency communicationservices kit.”

Device 501 is equipped with its own antenna 503 that searches for andprovides access to other wireless devices in the vicinity of wirelessnetworks such as cellular, wireless local area networks or even acitizens band radio. Connections may be established to the primaryelectronic device via a hardwired connection 502. In case of an USBconnection, such devices may be presented on the primary electronicdevice as a simple mass storage device. Device 504 represents anotherperipheral device that is also connected to the primary electronicdevice, but unlike device 501, device 504 searches for and connects toavailable wired devices in the vicinity via a cable 505.

Primary electronic devices that do not have such modern peripheralinterfaces may also be equipped with an auxiliary peripheral device byconnecting it to any available input/output connector. For example, theperipheral device 506 which is equipped with a separate antenna may beconnected to an audio input and output of the primary electronic device.

Referring to FIG. 6, other devices, such as, analog telephones 600 aremore limited as they do not have additional peripheral interfaces at alland usually only provide a single interface for communication. In suchcase, an intermediary external device 601 can be used that, on one sideacts and may be contacted as an additional branch of an existingtelephone system, whereas on the other side it searches and connects todevices in the vicinity or public available communication infrastructurevia wireless 602 or wired (not shown) connections.

If equipped with an alternate energy source such as a battery or anaccumulator, any variant of such additional peripheral device can searchfor and connect to public available communication infrastructure ordevices in the vicinity even when the main device is offline or powereddown. A set of limited functionality such as continuous posting ofinformation can also be provided by such an auxiliary device. Forexample, the device can post details about its current networkconnection to a predefined target. This information could then allowlocalization of the geographic position of the device. Even controlssuch as buttons may be provided to allow the user to interact with theauxiliary peripheral device to initiate various actions, such as,searching for and connecting to public available communicationinfrastructure or devices in the vicinity or posting predefined alertsin case of emergency.

Even without direct access to any public communication infrastructurefrom the primary electronic device itself usage of all variants of suchadditional peripheral devices is straightforward. As soon as theauxiliary peripheral device is powered up, supplied with power either bythe primary device or by a battery, it starts to search for devices inthe vicinity or public available communication infrastructure andconnects to them as described in the previous chapters. If the auxiliaryperipheral device is connected via an USB connection and shows up on theprimary electronic device as a mass storage device any informationwritten to this mass storage device could, in case of an alreadysuccessful established connection, simply be transmitted via thealternate communication channel or be buffered until a connectionattempt succeeds. In case an intermediary external device is used for ananalog telephone, the device can be utilized by simply dialing itsdirect dial number. Any information transmitted to this device wouldthen travel the alternate communication channel that was previouslyestablished by the auxiliary external device.

Although the invention has been described in relation to preferredembodiments, many variations, equivalents, modifications and other useswill become apparent to those skilled in the art. The scope of thepresent invention should not be limited to the specific disclosure butdetermined only by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: creating a local areanetwork (LAN) comprising at least two nodes one of which being at leastone device and one of which being a primary device, each of the nodes ofthe LAN exchanging authentication information with one another of saidnodes, and sharing their respective resources with the other nodes ofthe LAN by permitting each of said nodes to access and use anestablished communication infrastructure of other of said nodes;creating a communication layer via the primary device by incrementing anumber representing at least one of a network address, a telephonenumber and a frequency; creating a connection request comprising theincremented number; and transmitting, via a transmitter, the connectionrequest onto the communication layer to produce at least one successfulresponse.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein a primary communicationchannel operating in a wired or radio network is linked to an additionalcommunication channel established by the at least one device.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, wherein the primary communication channel has aninterface compatible with at least one of: a Bluetooth device; a humaninterface device (HID) comprising interactive input devices that areoperated by a system-supplied HID class driver, which comprises USBdevices that comply with a USB HID Standard and non-USB devices that usea HID minidriver; an IEEE 1394 device; an IrDA device comprisingserial-IR and fast-IR NDIS miniports; a multifunction device includingcombo cards comprising at least one of a PCMCIA modem and netcardadapter; a network adapter comprising NDIS NIC miniport drivers; a PCISSL accelerator device that accelerates secure socket layer (SSL)cryptographic processing; a PCMCIA adapter including CardBus hostcontrollers; a port device including serial and parallel port devices; aUSB peripheral device; and a Windows CE USB ActiveSync device thatsupports communication between a personal computer and a device that iscompatible with the Windows CE ActiveSync driver over USB.
 4. The methodof claim 2, wherein the primary communication channel has an interfacethat uses a modem.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:exchanging a set of predefined logon information with the at least onedevice; and establishing a bridged connection and transmittingconnection request packets according to the received logon information.6. A method, comprising: creating a local area network (LAN) comprisingat least two nodes one of which being at least one device and one ofwhich being a primary device, each of the nodes of the LAN exchangingauthentication information with one another of said nodes, and sharingtheir respective resources with the other nodes of the LAN by permittingeach of said nodes to access and use an established communicationinfrastructure of other of said nodes; creating a communication layervia the primary device by incrementing a number representing at leastone of a network address, a telephone number and a frequency; creating aconnection request comprising the incremented number; and transmitting,via a transmitter, the connection request onto the communication layerto produce at least one successful response.
 7. The method of claim 6,wherein a primary communication channel operating in the wired or radionetwork is linked to an additional communication channel established bythe at least one device.
 8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:exchanging a set of predefined logon information with the at least onedevice; and establishing a bridged connection and transmittingconnection request sequences according to the received logoninformation.
 9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium havingcomputer-executable instructions that when executed via a processorperform: creating a local area network (LAN) comprising at least twonodes one of which being at least one device and one of which being aprimary device, each of the nodes of the LAN exchanging authenticationinformation with one another of said nodes, and sharing their respectiveresources with the other nodes of the LAN by permitting each of saidnodes to access and use an established communication infrastructure ofother of said nodes; creating a communication layer via the primarydevice by incrementing a number representing at least one of a networkaddress, a telephone number and a frequency; creating a connectionrequest comprising the incremented number; and transmitting, via atransmitter, the connection request onto the communication layer toproduce at least one successful response.
 10. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 9, having furthercomputer-executable instructions to perform: linking a primarycommunication channel operating in the wired or radio network to anadditional communication channel established by the at least one device.11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9,having further computer-executable instructions to perform: exchanging aset of predefined logon information with the at least one device; andestablishing a bridged connection and transmitting connection requestpackets according to the received logon information.
 12. Anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium havingcomputer-executable instructions that when executed via a processorperform: creating a local area network (LAN) comprising at least twonodes one of which being at least one device and one of which being aprimary device, each of the nodes of the LAN exchanging authenticationinformation with one another of said nodes, and sharing their respectiveresources with the other nodes of the LAN by permitting each of saidnodes to access and use an established communication infrastructure ofother of said nodes; creating a communication layer via the primarydevice by incrementing a number representing at least one of a networkaddress, a telephone number and a frequency; creating a connectionrequest comprising the incremented number; and transmitting, via atransmitter, the connection request onto the communication layer toproduce at least one successful response.
 13. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 12, having furthercomputer-executable instructions to perform: linking a primarycommunication channel operating in the wired or radio network to anadditional communication channel established by the at least one device.14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12,having further computer-executable instructions to perform: exchanging aset of predefined logon information with the at least one device; andestablishing a bridged connection and transmitting the connectionrequest sequences according to the received logon information.
 15. Adevice, comprising: at least one processor that, when loaded withcomputer-readable instructions, executes the instructions to: establisha primary communication channel and at least one additionalcommunication channel at a device, connect to at least one device createa local area network (LAN) comprising at least two nodes one of whichbeing at least one device, each of the nodes of the LAN configured toexchange authentication information with one another of said nodes, andshare their respective resources with the other nodes of the LAN bypermitting each of said nodes to access and use an establishedcommunication infrastructure of other of said nodes; create acommunication layer via the primary device by incrementing a numberrepresenting at least one of a network address, a telephone number and afrequency, create a connection request comprising the incrementednumber, and transmit the connection request onto the communication layerto produce at least one successful response.
 16. The device of claim 15,wherein the primary communication channel is linked to the additionalcommunication channel.
 17. The device of claim 15, wherein the processoris further configured to exchange a set of predefined logon informationand establish a bridge connection and transmit a connection requestpacket according to the received logon information.
 18. A device,comprising: at least one processor that, when loaded withcomputer-readable instructions, executes the instructions to: establisha primary communication channel and at least one an additionalcommunication channel at a device, connect to at least one device,create a local area network (LAN) comprising at least two nodes one ofwhich being at least one device, each of the nodes of the LAN configuredto exchange authentication information with one another of said nodes,and share their respective resources with the other nodes of the LAN bypermitting each of said nodes to access and use an establishedcommunication infrastructure of other of said nodes, create acommunication layer via the primary device by incrementing a numberrepresenting at least one of a network address, a telephone number and afrequency, create a connection request comprising the incrementednumber, and transmit the connection request onto the communication layerto produce at least one successful response.
 19. The device of claim 18,wherein the primary communication channel is linked to the additionalcommunication channel.
 20. The device of claim 18, wherein the processoris further configured to exchange a set of predefined logon informationand establish a bridge connection and transmit the connection requestsequences according to the received logon information.